Øresund Space Collective – Hallucinations Inside the Oracle (Space Rock – 2017)

 

———Prolific danish Øresund Space Collective, an ensemble of Dr Space – synths; Hasse – doun douns, bass, talking drum; Jiri – bass; Jonathan – violin, guitar, bass, farfisa, and others; KG – sitar, guitar, synths; Magnus – guitar, synths; Tim – drums is out with Hallucinations Inside the Oracle now for their own label named Space Rock.

———Opening with Reflections in the Minds Eye, a raga-song quickly introduce us the whole mood. An instrumental, improvisational, space, psychedelic release as we would have expected. They scan areas already plowed by many others in the past, in a rock contest.

———ESP opens with a Dusseldrof styled electronic sequence, crazed spaced out guitars, solid rhythmic; later the synth gives way to a different rhythm and groove, always as impro and so on up to the end.

———The Oracle fits a whole vinyl (!) and it’s a summation of what we heard before.

Hallucinations Inside the Oracle is an old psychedelic/raga styled release, but we like that, even if actually sometimes it may seems too long.

1 Reflections in the Minds Eye 19:38
2 ESP (Extreme Spatial Perspective) 19:31
3 The Oracle 40:47

 

The Spacelords – Water Planet (Tonzonen – 2017)

———German Spacelords, aka Matthias Wettstein (guitar, vocals), Klaus Werz (bass, synthesizer), Marcus Schnitzler (drums, djembe, percussion, effects, vocals) are a good space / jam band that reached its 6th full-lenght.

———Imagine an instrumental Hawkwindesque trio with straight, direct and simple rhythmic that won’t betrays.

———You know how the songs start and you can be sure that the emotion arrives, just because all is direct to that.

Nothing new, of course, but they are able to lead you in nice and groovy territories, well known and beloved.

1 Plasma Thruster 11:0
2 Metamorphosis 11:49
3 Nag Kanya 19:34

Les Lekin – Died With Fear (Tonzonen – 2017)

———Les Lekin from Salzburg, Austria is: Peter G. (guitar), Beat B. (bass), Kerstin W. (drums) and they want to play a sort of stoned / psych / jam / space/ heavy psych stuff.

———Three years after ‘All Black Rainbow Moon‘ (2104) they still don’t persuade.

———Production is really poor, the mix is not good, performance too, during the whole 4 long songs.

They have some good ideas here and there, but they need to grow.

1. Orca 10:38
2. Inert 10:19
3. Vast 08:57
4. Morph 13:34

Galactic Gulag – To The Stars By Hard Ways (self – 2017)

———Interesting project from the unusual Brasil, César Silva (drums), Gabriel Dunke (bass), Breno Xavier (rhythm guitar), Pablo Dias (lead guitar) are Galactic Gulag, a mix of Space Rock, Progressive, Heavy Psych and modern approach.

———A long Space/Prog intro characterizes Home, with its long run (12.24) it gives the chance of long and well made guitar soloing, a la Malmsteen I’d say.

———But we have a song here, different passages and rhythm compositions, check The Hollow Moon with the sax.

———The whole platter goes like this, a sort of Void Generator‘s We Have Found The Space without being Stoner or Sludge.

It deserves a label for sure, their music is really well preformed with engaging songs, where the only downside is the medium timing of the tracks.

1 Home 12:24
2 Escape From Planet Gulag 11:35
3 The Hollow Moon 8:45
4 Space-Time Singularity 9:02
5 Eta Orionis 15:04

 

Howling Giant – Black Hole Space Wizard: Part 2 (self – 2017)

———Well, Nashville is the homeland of Country Music but aehm…this is not Country style for sure. This is the third ep after the eponymous (2015) and Black Hole Space Wizard: Part 1 (2016) for the Howling Giant.

———Tom Polzine – Guitar/Vocals, Roger Marks – Bass/Vocals and Zach Wheeler – drums/Vocals released this interesting platter in vein of the best space/psychedelic/heavy psych rock.

Among Hawkwind, Pink Floyd, proggish progression, alternative side and so on, from the start to the end.
Of course, nothing of innovative, but very well made and enjoyable.

1 Henry Tate
2 The Pioneer
3 Visions
4 The Forest Speaks
5 Circle of Druids
6 Earth Wizard

Spaceslug – Mountains & Reminiscence ep (BSFD – 2017)

———Spaceslug from Poland released this EP as CD probably for the Polish BSFD Records after Lemanis (2016) and the good Time Travel Dilemma (2017) that were full-length.

———Mountains & Reminiscence is a platter full of good things, but even bad too.

———The whole record indeed is made by a good space rock with some stoner edges, but sometimes it lacks of a good implementation. Very good are the vocals that have a mature structure, riffs are clear most of the times and they lead sometime in an Alternative style, without being bad.

———But e.g. if you listen to Elephemeral, the phrasing and soloing is often inaccurate. Then, so often, songs seems to be an end just a lot before the real ending. Sometimes it seems that the song will be much more heavy but they don’t want… Space Sabbath is the proof of that.

A good release and a good band, but I am sure they can improve the whole thing a lot.
So, we hope that!

 

1. Bemused And Gone 05:06
2. I Am The Gravity 04:30
3. Elephemeral 05:23
4. Space Sabbath 06:26
5. Opposite The Sun 05:54

Astral Mass – Astral Mass (self – 2017)

———Astral Mass from Indianapolis is essentially an Heavy Metal band with some hints of Space.

———Related to Apostole Of Solitude among others, Mike Naish (bass, vocals), Nick Ciobotaru (drums), Jeff Kaleth (guitar) plays a common metal that quickly flows away without remarkable moments.

———Just a typical American approach (guitar sounds, vocal chorus etc.), aiming may be to the younger fans, that is boring after few notes due to the extreme lack of personality.

Just check it if don’t believe that.

1. Matter Smasher 06:09
2. Cosmic String 06:02
3. Desert Planet Ritual 07:18
4. Clear the Tower 06:04
5. Apollo’s Hand 07:27
6. Rise Armada 06:09
7. Jovian Winds 05:35

Void Generator – Prodromi (Phonosphera 2017)

———Void Generator from Rome are back since Supersound (2014) with a different platter. Prodromi is a real free rehearsal impro recorded by only a mic, the audio quality is not really the best indeed, but the feel is very good.

———Two guitars (Gianmarco Iantaffi and Sonia Caporossi) and a synth (Enrico Cosimi aka Tau Ceti) run together, on a solid job of the drummer (Marco Cenci) in vein of Hotel Wrecking City Traders but more spaced out, so they (we) don’t even know where and how the song will end.

———Four long tracks, hints of Colour Haze or Motorpsycho here and there that need a double listening to be into that hypnotic release.

A real jamming trip where the only downside is the audio quality.

 

 

1. 40 Kiloparsecs 07:23
2. Sleeping Waves 13:45
3. I Am The Brave 13:40
4. Calvary 15:35

 

Nate Hall – The Center Of The Earth (self – 2017)

———Nate Hall, guitar and vocals of U.S. Christmas, is still releasing some interesting psychedelic or contemporary folk, someone talks of ‘Americana’ style.

———Well known should be his Hawkwind(ing) style, and the result of The Center of the Earth is a very good compound of sad song, some spoken words coming from 2015.

‘Born alive, on fire, sent to a moving circle that orbits the dark of night. Inside the rings of a hand, the lines of some old face. Into this center I have come to know.

The Center of The Earth’

———If you are a bit depressed I don’t tip this release, not always perfect in terms of implementation, but if you like to listen to songs made by real passion go for it.

 

1. Night Sky Humming 02:48
2. Purple 01:00
3. Bitter World of Dreams 02:50
4. The Holy Spirit 05:03
5. Winter Fingers 02:34
6. Because They Are Strange 02:17
7. The Center of the Earth 02:55
8. Always 05:58
9. Wet to Slip This Skin 05:18
10. Circling Fall 02:34
11. Fallen Sparrow 03:00
12. Green 00:58
13. Til the Waves Grow Still 03:35